Fallen (BoyxBoy)

Chapter 15 - The Island

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*Talian's POV*

The screen brightened when a flash went off followed by pained cries from my character as a creature attacked it while I tried to stumble out of the way, unable to see anything. Maybe it was because I had lost my memory and thus my ability, or maybe it was because I had never been good at it, but the game was going terribly. Still, with nothing else to do, I kept trying to play. There had not been much of an improvement in my skill in the past couple of hours since turning on the video game.

I groaned as the character let out its last cry and the screen turned red before returning to the last checkpoint. Sighing, I began playing again but decided to take a different route hoping it would lead to a different result this time. It was fun playing despite not being any good at it.

The living room curtains were drawn and the room was mostly dark even though it was already past midday because the game was so dark, I would be unable to see anything if there was any light coming in through the window. As the character headed through the tunnel guided by a flashlight, soft dripping of water and light growling could be heard nearby. After a few more seconds of walking whilst expecting a jump scare, the subtle sounds were drowned out by an in-game river but my fingers stopped moving against the buttons as a familiar wistful wave clouded my mind. I shut my eyes suddenly able to smell wet grass and mud, hear the river even clearer.

The fragrances made me feel a little dizzy, so I tried to breathe deeply to calm down, but the scents did not disappear and when I opened my eyes, I was not far from a river.

Looking down, I appeared to be on a swing. My feet lazily kicking out to make the seat rock forward showed shoes that were covered in mud. They were white shoes, I knew my mom was going to kill me when she saw them covered in brown gunk but at the moment, I did not mind the dirt and continued swinging back and forth.

The sound of the river water crashing wildly almost drowned out the happy yells from children somewhere nearby. I focused on the water trying not to pay too much attention to the voices and instead attempted to freeze some of the splashing droplets mid-air. It was hard at first, but soon I got the hang of it and several of the drops would freeze before falling back into the water.

Even with my focus on the river though, it was impossible not to pay attention to the cheerful, excited yelling and, eventually, I sighed dropping my eyes back to my feet to watch them kick out as I tried to sway the swing further.

"Lian, we've been looking for you all morning. Have you been here the whole time?" the voice came with a hand falling over mine to stop the swing's movement as the older girl knelt down in front of me. I gave her a smile.

"That's why you never win at hide and seek," I pointed out. I was in our backyard, it really should not have been that hard to find me. Both my brother and sister were just horrible seekers.

Avery laughed, shaking her head at me. Her hand lifted to pat my head gently as her face quickly fell into a concerned, somewhat pitiful stare.

"Are you okay?"

"Yup. Just wanted to swing." I swung my feet out as though needing to prove my point despite my being on the swing already showing that.

"You sure you're not avoiding the others again?" I was. Not because of the other kids, but because some parents were at the playground at the moment and it was quite obvious that they did not want their kids to be around me. I did not want her to worry though, so shook my head in reply. "Well," her voice lowered into a whisper, "I'm going down. Wanna come?" Down? My eyes shifted towards the river. On the other side was a dense forest and further than that was the edge of our island.

"We're not allowed," I mumbled.

"I won't tell if you don't. I'm only giving you this one chance, Lian." I glanced towards our house sceptically. Our mother could be seen inside through the kitchen window, she seemed to be making coffee based on her position, her attention geared towards the task at hand. Had she noticed Avery and me in the backyard?

Usually, I would have agreed in a heartbeat because I had always wanted to go. We were not allowed to leave the island. I had upset so many people already though, and I did not want my mom to be angry at me as well. She would be if she found out we left. But Avery was good at sneaking off without getting caught. So was our brother. They might have sucked at seeking, but we were all great at hiding. I had never left the island in my eleven years of life, I constantly begged my older siblings to take me with them when they snuck off but they had refused every time.

"Ready to go?" the hushed voice behind me belonged to Arion and I looked up surprised that he was going as well. He grinned giving me a wink. Well, of course, he was going. He wouldn't miss out on an opportunity to do something he wasn't supposed to. I wasn't sure why I was surprised. My eyes dropped back to our older sister who was still waiting for my response. Since it was my only chance to go, and I trusted that our parents would not find out because they had never been caught, I began to nod in agreement but froze hearing a call from the front of the house.

"Ashen?! Where are you?" my eyes widened at our father's voice.

"Let's go!" Arion grabbed my hand to tug me off of the swing and the three of us went running towards the river. Glancing back towards the house, our mother seemed to have left the kitchen so did not notice the sudden movement in the backyard.

I felt Avery grab my hand, my siblings' wings expanding for a couple of seconds so they flew over the river lifting me along. Their wings were gone and soon as we landed and continued running into the forest.

"Wings, Lian," Avery out called a minute later and I realised that both their wings were already spread out again. I followed my siblings' leads as our running slowed and I stumbled to a stop at the brink of the island.

I had been to the edge a few times, stared over but it was hard to see anything below from so far up and sometimes clouds blocked the view. Our parents also did not like us coming out to the edge even if we had no intention of heading over so it rarely happened. My heart was racing as I stared down. I had flown a lot, but not that far out because it was never necessary. Would my wings have the strength to keep me afloat all the way down? There were lots of rumours of young fairies thinking they could make it down but running out of strength in the air and plummeting the rest of the way to their deaths. How far away was the ground? I felt Avery's grip on my hand tighten causing my head to turn to her. She gave me a reassuring smile.

"In case your wings give out. Let's go."

"Wait, wait –!" I shut my eyes because it was too late, both of them had already jumped tugging me along.

I yelled out as pain shot through my casted arm when it collided with the coffee table. How the hell? My teeth clenched trying to ride through the acute pain while coiling on the floor, my wrist pressed to my chest as my eyes watered. Damn cast, I couldn't even rub my arm to lessen the pain.

When the ache finally began to subside, I leaned my head back against the floor and stared up at the ceiling. The chandelier had been replaced. This one had glass pieces around the light that looked like shimmering drops of rain and reminded me of the splashing water in my memory. I let out a sigh relaxing my body, my sock-covered feet sliding against the floor until my legs were straight out.

I had siblings. Where had they gone? What happened after we left the island? Why did it feel like our father was calling out to me when he said the name Ashen? Avery called me Lian... Closing my eyes, I replayed everything in my mind and tried to continue from where it ended but, as always, nothing came up. I tried to go back, find out how I ended up on the swing to begin with but nothing came from that either and the harder I tried, the harder it became to even think of the initial memory until my head began to hurt again and it started to feel like the floor I was on was rocking beneath me. The dizzying feeling was sickening and I quickly gave up trying to think.

Fearing that opening my eyes and moving would only make my head worse, I opted to continue laying there until the pain drowned into sleep.

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Thank you for reading :D